


breathe with it (bleed with it)

by teamfreehoodies



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, It's not as dark as it sounds i promise, More info in notes, Musings on Power, Necromancy, Revenge, temporary animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:01:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28805499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamfreehoodies/pseuds/teamfreehoodies
Summary: Fringilla was the first. She flexes her hand, feeling again the phantom tendrils of chaos crawling up her veins as her arm had turned to desiccated ash and bone in recompense for her glory. That was what being noticed got you. That was a lesson learned in blood and pain. That was a lesson learned fast and hard andonce.a Fringilla Vigo character study; "There is no such thing as dark or light magic. Nothing in this world is as simple as that."
Comments: 11
Kudos: 19
Collections: The Witcher Quick Fic #04





	breathe with it (bleed with it)

Fringilla was the first. She flexes her hand, feeling again the phantom tendrils of chaos crawling up her veins as her arm had turned to desiccated ash and bone in recompense for her glory. That was what being noticed got you. That was a lesson learned in blood and pain. That was a lesson learned fast and hard and _once_.

* * *

The deserts of Korrath are not like any place else on the continent. Chaos lives in the scrub here far more prominently than in the mountains of Kaedwen or the open fields of the Yaruga valley: even Tor Lara, which Tissaia once proclaimed to be the most potent place on the continent, pales in comparison to the wildness of the Chaos here. The desert breathes with it, bleeds with it: comes alive in the night with the power of it. 

This is where Fringilla finds peace. Finds power. Finds her place as a mage beyond the Brotherhood or the Conclave or anything which would try to limit her. Not now. Not after they abandoned her to the worst posting a mage could leave Aretuza with, nothing expected of her or offered to her, banished as if that was all she was good for— to be boxed into a corner and left to “hold the peace.” 

They will come to regret writing her off so easily. All of them will.

The desert welcomes her, swirling eddies of Chaos responding to her presence, preparing to do her bidding. Tissaia may spin pretty tales about balance all she likes but this is the truth in writing older than blood. Chaos is random, is by its very nature ineffable; to bend it to your will is nothing short of miraculous— to limit it, a transgression born of ignorance. 

Fringilla is a scholar, is thirsty for knowledge, is studious and quiet and good at slipping past barriers. The books were easy to acquire. The magic, less so. 

“Fuck.”

The skeleton falls back to the ruddy orange stone of the cliffside she’d found it on, and she kicks furiously at a drift of snow beside her, shaking her arms out to rid them of the shock-electric feel of blood-magic pulling on her veins. 

Power thrums in her chest, an anxious vibration responding to the pull of the natural Chaos emanating from the earth here. The wind kick ups, a sudden gust which snaps her dress forward to tangle around her ankles. It’s cold, bitterly so, and she squints at the sky, surprised to find she’d missed the sun setting.

The moon hasn’t yet risen, the delicate blue-hour slipping like a film over the world around her. The scenery calms and with it too does Fringilla, taking a moment to breathe deeply and recenter herself.

The skeleton remains a skeleton, the snow and the trees and the valley are not slipping away from her. The Chaos is still there. She has time. 

She calls again on the iron in her blood, reaches a hand out to the Chaos twining around the sun-bleached bones in front of her. Piece by piece she reanimates, wills life into place where death had been, rebuilds ligaments and musculature and cartilage; the skin and the bone and the heartbeat, rabbit fast. She feels each beat of the heart as a knife against her skin, digging in, the displacement of her internal workings as the sharpened blade of focused Chaos slides against her own, reshifting and breaking to allow the connection to form. 

For a terrifying moment her heartbeat spins wildly out of control, spiking in her chest as if to thump entirely out of her before it calms, the connection shining silver as it snaps into stasis— she gasps, opening her eyes as the Chaos sloughs away from her with the finality of a spell-cast successfully. 

The rabbit before her is flesh made living again, a perfect recreation of the final moments before its death— a bloodless void where there was nothing to rebuild the rib cage (bitten out by a fox or gouged out by a hawk or ripped out by any number of potential predators) is the only indication it’s not a normal rabbit. It sits in perfect subservience, nose twitching, heart beating, chaos crackling with the burden of holding the form once lost to it. 

Fringilla is the first— the rabbit dips to all four paws in a silent bow, crawling towards her, responding to naught but the song of her will reaching out across the Chaos that binds it to her. Necromancy was banned before the Cleansing— Fringilla might be the only. 

The rabbit bumps against her hand, trembling faintly as it nudges gently at her fingers. The fur is soft, delicate. Easily ruined. 

She stands up from where she’d fallen with the effort of casting, pulling the rabbit with her by the scruff. It’s docile enough, still bound to her will, that it merely hangs limply in her grip. A curious sight to behold, a prey-animal with the fight beaten out of it. Its gaze is empty, vacuous. 

She smiles gently at it, ending the spell with a snap as the fur turns back to ash and nothingness, the body falling back to skeletal remnants as flesh dissolves and muscles are unmade. The bones clatter dully on the ground as she wipes her hands off, surveying the land in front of her. The desert stretches out into the distance, so vast it has never been crossed, an ocean unable to be traversed. 

This is the edge of the world, the last bastion of untouched ground, safe from the dregs of humanity and monsters alike, held in reverence by the dwarves and ignored in fear by the elves— this is where Fringilla thrives. 

She reaches again for the Chaos in her blood, casting a wider net as she searches for the life forces around her; if she can bring a rabbit back from the dead, surely she can reverse it. That which is done can be undone, easy as anything. 

The desert comes to life around her. Though her eyes see nothing in the blue-limned dusk, her magic feels the truth, revealing to her the shape of this ecosystem. A mole rat burrows though its underground tunnels, chasing its next meal, whose shifting chitinous wings brush over each other in rhythmic burrs as the bugs crawl through the earth, busy with the burden of living. A fox stalks a snake, gentle paw-strikes not gentle enough to avoid detection by the serpent, who feels the vibrations and stills in anticipation of the need to bolt. A lizard pauses, one foot held in perfect repose as it hides in plain sight, avoiding the eyes of a hawk soaring over the mountain range aiming for the gully which is always full of hiding prey. 

Fringilla feels all of this; each life like a light in the darkness, waiting to be snuffed out. She breathes in, readying herself— this is the test. 

Iron and ash and Chaos incarnate— it’s intention and will and power bent to her might as the mole rat gurgles its final breath and the snake and fox fall limp in the same instant the hawk plummets to earth, its hunting dive towards the lizard made null, even as the lizard drops—

Death rolls over the desert at Fringilla’s behest. 

She laughs with the rush of power as each life-force is drawn to her and then just as quickly released, filling the sudden void with each life restored. The hawk squawcks in fear as it pulls out of its dive, the mole rat, stupid, falls backwards through its own hole trying to back away from the invisible threat. The snake slips into a hole and the fox shakes itself, bewildered before yipping its pain to the moon, newly risen. The lizard peels itself out of the snowdrift it had fallen into, skittering over the ground as it runs away from a threat it has no scope for. 

None were dead for more than an instant, but each new life was given back with her blessing. Her power. Her glory. 

Fringilla is the first. Is possibly the only: Aretuza will burn when she comes for them. This she knows to be true. They will feel her pain and her power and her wrath.

This is a lesson, taught only once. 

**Author's Note:**

> I think there's a really captivating darkness to Fringilla's character that's sort of hidden behind her ambition to save the continent via the White Flame, so this is my attempt at exploring that. This is not the definitive take on her character (obviously) and this story is only reflective of my reading of the character, which is influenced in part by my own projections. I hope you enjoyed!


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